For Officials on
Tape, Legislator’s
Invitation Was Ruse

Shirley L. Huntley, who was under investigation by the F.B.I. while she was a state senator, agreed to record conversations with colleagues. She hoped her cooperation would help her case.Credit
Uli Seit for The New York Times

ALBANY — Over three months last year, Shirley L. Huntley, a longtime schools advocate then serving in the State Legislature, invited several of her fellow Senate Democrats, as well as a Democratic New York City councilman, to visit with her at her tomato-red Cape Cod-style house on a residential street in Jamaica, Queens.

Ms. Huntley, now 74, said she had broken her ankle, and she often held court last summer in a small room in the back of her house, sitting on a couch, surrounded by campaign supplies, often chain-smoking cigarettes or sipping Zinfandel, while her white poodle waited upstairs, one visitor recalled.

Her guests, according to court papers, included some of the most prominent elected officials in Queens and Brooklyn, and she recorded their conversations.

Ms. Huntley had an agenda: She was under investigation for corruption and hoped that cooperating with federal law enforcement would help her case. Furthermore, according to her lawyer, she had told investigators she believed that some of her fellow public officials were corrupt.

Photo

Among those recorded were State Senator Eric Adams of Brooklyn.Credit
Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times

On Wednesday, over the objections of prosecutors, a federal judge unsealed a list of the officials recorded by Ms. Huntley. The list, prepared by her lawyer as part of a request for leniency at sentencing, includes two former leaders of the Senate Democratic caucus, as well as candidates to become the borough presidents in Brooklyn and Queens.

Ms. Huntley’s lawyer, Sally J.M. Butler, said the guest list had been suggested “by the government’s attorneys and F.B.I. agents,” but did not say whether the guests themselves were suspected of corruption.

Prosecutors would not comment on the list, and it was impossible to tell which of Ms. Huntley’s guests were suspected of crimes, which might have been of interest to prosecutors seeking evidence against other people, and which might be collateral damage in Ms. Huntley’s effort to ingratiate herself with prosecutors.

Two of those recorded by Ms. Huntley — the former Senate Democratic leaders John L. Sampson of Brooklyn and Malcolm A. Smith of Queens — have since been indicted, but none of the others have been charged, and the councilman who was recorded, Ruben Wills of Queens, said prosecutors had notified his lawyer that he was not a target.

In one court document, filed on Tuesday as they sought to prevent the disclosure of the names of those recorded, prosecutors indicated that at least six of seven elected officials recorded by Ms. Huntley were the subjects of criminal investigations. But in another document, filed last week, prosecutors said that Ms. Huntley had not been credible in talking about her own conduct, and as a result they had decided not to enter into a cooperation agreement with her.

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State Senator Velmanette Montgomery of Brooklyn.Credit
Michael Nagle for The New York Times

But the release of the names was a stunning turn of events in a capital already reeling from a series of arrests of officials in recent weeks, following years of scandal that brought down multiple lawmakers, a governor and a comptroller. According to a running tally maintained by the New York Public Interest Research Group, 32 current or former state officeholders have been convicted, censured or otherwise accused of wrongdoing over the past seven years.

There are multiple reminders of corruption in Albany — there are four legislators serving in office while facing criminal charges, and an unknown number of others are under investigation. Anticipating further unpleasantness on Wednesday, many lawmakers left town just ahead of the 2 p.m. unsealing of the document that named those who had been recorded.

“This is an extremely trying time in Albany,” Mike Murphy, a spokesman for the Senate Democrats, said as his conference tried to digest the news that one of its members had recorded others. “If any charges are brought, the conference will take appropriate action.”

Ms. Huntley is one of two former lawmakers who have recently acknowledged recording conversations for federal law enforcement — Assemblyman Nelson L. Castro, a Bronx Democrat, was making recordings for the United States attorney in Manhattan before Ms. Huntley did the same for the United States attorney in Brooklyn.

Ms. Huntley made her recordings from June to August last year after she was approached by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which confronted her with evidence of her involvement in criminal schemes. In September, she lost a bid for re-election in a Democratic primary, and in January, she pleaded guilty to embezzling more than $87,000 in taxpayer money from a nonprofit organization. She is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday.

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State Senator José Peralta of Queens.Credit
Victor J. Blue for The New York Times

According to the document prepared by her lawyer, Ms. Huntley not only recorded her guests but also photographed them.

The two guests recorded by Ms. Huntley who are facing charges, Mr. Smith and Mr. Sampson, were charged in separate cases. Mr. Smith was accused in a scheme to buy a place on the ballot for mayor of New York. Mr. Sampson was accused of stealing more than $400,000 from the sale of foreclosed homes.

Ms. Huntley recorded four other Democratic senators: Eric Adams of Brooklyn, Ruth Hassell-Thompson of Mount Vernon, José Peralta of Queens and Velmanette Montgomery of Brooklyn. Mr. Adams is a candidate this year for Brooklyn borough president, and Mr. Peralta for Queens borough president.

Mr. Adams issued a statement, saying, “I have not been contacted about any investigation.”

He added, “I am more than willing to help with any investigation.”

Mr. Peralta issued a one-sentence statement that said, “I am confident that the authorities will find, if they have not already done so, that I have engaged in no wrongdoing whatsoever.”

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State Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson of Mount Vernon.Credit
Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

Gerald L. Shargel, a lawyer for Mr. Smith, said, “I know that Malcolm Smith spoke to Shirley Huntley during the summer of 2012, but I am confident that there wasn’t a word spoken about criminal conduct.”

Ms. Hassell-Thompson also acknowledged meeting with Ms. Huntley — she said Ms. Huntley had invited her to lunch — but denied wrongdoing.

“We met and spoke, in general, about matters including our health and our families,” she said. “At no time, past or present, did we discuss anything inappropriate, improper or illegal.”

Mr. Sampson’s lawyer, Zachary W. Carter, declined to comment. Ms. Montgomery did not respond to a request for comment.

Ms. Huntley also recorded two political operatives — Curtis Taylor, a former spokesman for the Senate Democrats, and Melvin Lowe, who has worked as a consultant for Mr. Sampson and the Senate Democrats. Mr. Lowe also had a long-ago association withAndrew M. Cuomo, a Democrat who paid him $75,000 for consulting on his unsuccessful campaign for governor in 2002; Mr. Cuomo, who was elected governor in 2010, thanked Mr. Lowe in the acknowledgments of a book in 2003.

In court papers, Ms. Huntley’s lawyer, Sally Butler, described Mr. Lowe as a onetime associate of the state’s attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, whose office prosecuted Ms. Huntley in a corruption case in which she pleaded guilty in February. A spokesman for Mr. Schneiderman, Damien LaVera, said the reference appeared “to be an attempt at retaliation against Attorney General Schneiderman, who has never hired Melvin Lowe or used his services.”

Mr. Taylor and Mr. Lowe did not respond to requests for comment.

Thomas Kaplan reported from Albany, and William K. Rashbaum and Mosi Secret from New York. Danny Hakim contributed reporting from Albany, and Nate Schweber from New York.

A version of this article appears in print on May 9, 2013, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: State Senator Covertly Taped 7 at Her Home. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe